The official spokespersons of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) are fulminating in television debates screaming, “The Chinese backstabbed India.” They are aghast at the killings of Indian soldiers by the People’s Liberation Army, and pointing out that Chinese President Xi Jinping, who broke bread with Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Mamallapuram and was serenaded on the banks of Sabarmati river with folk music and showered petals, betrayed Modi.
Instead of calm analysis to find out what triggered the surprise Chinese attack, they are becoming delusional. This kind of naïveté from self-styled 'strategists' of think tanks who advise the government in dealing with realpolitik and strategic matters with a country like China is dangerous to national security as we have seen now in Ladakh. Soldiers, including a commanding officer, were gruesomely killed. Entrenchments happened inside the Indian territory at various points along the LAC in Ladakh and Naku la in Sikkim.
Journalist Harish Khare called it 'failure of imagination' on the part of Modi, just as the then PM Jawaharlal Nehru failed to imagine that China would attack India in 1962. It was not failure of imagination but failure of 'intelligence' now and in 1962, according to many apolitical defence analysts.
Nehru, who is blamed by Modi and his party for all of India's present-day ills, though far-fetched, certainly must take the blame for getting carried away by the euphoria of Chini-India ‘bhai bhai’, falling to the beguiling charm of Zhou En Lai even as Chairman Mao was building its war machine to invade India in 1962. The Chinese overran the unprepared and unsuspecting Indian Army, resulting in loss of territory in Arunachal and Aksaichin in Ladakh and heavy casualties. Indians thought then, just as now, that China was treacherous. Nehru, a broken man, admitted to this before his death.
Similarities between now and 1962
There are many parallels between 1962 and today. Nehru pursued what was known as an aggressive Forward Policy and the Indian military carried out frequent probes deep behind Chinese posts that were picketed North of the McMohan line, even though India and Tibet considered that as the official border since 1914 when it was signed. Nehru being a historian believed that the ancient border ran along the ridges and peaks North of the MC Mohan Line. Tibet was then independent.
Nehru also angered the Chinese with his open espousal of the Tibetan cause and gave refuge to the Dalai Lama and his followers. He gave permission to raise a secretive Tibetan Border Force that recruited Tibetans for surveillance of the borders but China perceived it as Indian attempts to undermine and subvert Chinese rule in Tibet.
While Nehru did all this, perplexingly he refused to increase the defence budget, for military spending and prepare for a possible war despite advice from many military commanders because he was unrealistic and wedded to a pacifist policy, while his critics called him naive, lacking in statecraft. Nehru’s focus was also more on large dams and steel plants and building institutions while he discounted Chinese threats. When India sent its troops in 1961 to Goa, then still a Portuguese colony and evicted the Portuguese, many Congress leaders including the then home minister Lal Bahadur Shastri boasted in Parliament that China will be taught a similar lesson if it does not vacate Aksaichin on its own. While Nehru and Zhou Enlai were both still trying to resolve the border disputes through dialogue, all these pinpricks and threats, and inciting Tibet against China, enraged Mao who felt Nehru was acting two-faced.
Same mistakes as in the past
Increasingly isolated from both Russia and the US, China planned meticulously and gathered all resources for a massive invasion to put a stop to perceived imperialist ambitions of India which Mao felt was inching closer to the US. Beijing invaded India in October 1962 on two fronts more than 2,000 km apart in Ladakh and Arunachal, then known as NEFA. Similar sentiments as now, of betrayal by China, were expressed by followers of Nehru who were woolly-headed sentimentalists when it came to dealing with the emerging new world order. So, after constantly ridiculing Nehru for the 1962 disaster, how did the present government making its brand of muscular nationalism its war cry at every opportunity commit the same blunders that independent India’s first prime minister did?
Even as Nehru was increasingly promoting non-alignment on the international arena and the philosophy of Panchsheel with Zhou Enlai prior to 1962, China had made its intentions clear about its military build-up and ambitions of being a military power after it was increasingly bullied both by the US and Russia, the two superpowers. In his address to the Chinese Communist Party Politiburo in 1956, Chairman Mao said:
"... Not only are we going to have more airplanes and artillery, but also the atomic bomb. In today's world, if we don't want to be bullied, we have to have this thing."
Both Nehru and his cohorts then and the government and its advisors now failed to read China correctly. Nehru was warned by astute analysts and military commanders about China's cloak-and-dagger methods. And reputed military analysts have been writing reams about the Chinese hegemonic designs and massive infrastructure build-up and helipads, airfields and fortifications all along the Tibetan border from Ladakh and Sikkim to Arunachal since the last three decades, and of late have been warning of heavy mobilisation of troops, armour and artillery which have been ignored by both the UPA and the NDA led by the BJP.
Two salient parts
There are clearly two aspects to all this. Prudent diplomatic and geopolitical policies on the one hand and military capabilities and related strategy and tactics on the other have to be pursued together. Both have bearing and influence on one another. Did Modi make the same mistakes Nehru did? Many retired military analysts such as Lt Gen HS Panag and Brahma Chelany think so.
While Modi's diplomatic initiatives with China were bold and laudable and his personal meetings with Xi were the right initiatives, India should have kept its eyes peeled on the massive Chinese build-up along the LAC and matched it, even as he hugged and broke bread with Xi in an atmosphere of disarming bonhomie. There's a method in the madness why China attacked the Indian troops now.
MK Narayanan, former head of IB and NSA during the UPA rule, who attended the border dispute dialogues from 2010 to 2015 as a Special Representative, said "Almost all India-China border agreements are premised on the presumed neutrality of both countries.... this sentiment was an ever-present reality during all border discussions."
It's implicit and obvious that if India wishes to resolve border disputes amicably with China, India cannot align itself with the US in matters that are inimical to China's interests. Modi rushed to placate Trump and eagerly sided with the US in many conflicts of interest between US and China and even adopted a belligerent policy that was decidedly against China's interests by joining the QUAD the alliance of the US, Australia, Japan and India to deter Chinese expansionist activities in the South China Sea and Far East.
Xi must have seen this as running with the hares and hunting with the hounds. This decidedly angered Xi because of India's pro-US stance, even as it was negotiating and trying to resolve border issues.
The New York Times in an elaborate article published on June 16 attributed the trigger among other things to Home Minister Amit Shah (just as the home minister of Nehru in 1961) triumphantly proclaiming in Parliament last year soon after abrogating Article 370 in Jammu and Kashmir, that India will not only repossess POK (Pak-Occupied Kashmir) from Pakistan but also wrest back Aksaichin from China and would 'sacrifice life for this'.
If India expects China to be not hypocritical, China too will not accept double-dealing by India—Modi embracing Xi here and hugging Trump over a deal that threatens China is not seen by Xi as acts of good faith. The long and short of this is , political grandstanding in geopolitics must be tempered by deep analysis taking into account the fallout on bilateral issues with neighbours, especially someone as wily and belligerent as China and must be accompanied by shrewd assessment of enemy's capabilities, designs and actions on our borders. To be non-aligned may be more prudent till India becomes a military and economic power house.
Many highly decorated retired army generals have pointed out that though successive governments have been tardy and have failed in building adequate armament capabilities of the three forces in step with China, which has a military edge over India, India has acquired over the years, despite the foregoing handicaps, formidable capabilities in a conventional war with China. In mountain warfare, it’s viewed by analysts even among many in the West as the best in the world and there’s wide consensus that India has an edge over China in the Himalayan high-altitude mountains if a full-scale war breaks out.
And the terrain is to India’s advantage. CNN analyst Brad Lendon in an article of June 18 reported: "Conventional wisdom has it that China holds a significant military advantage over India, but recent studies from the Belfer Center at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government in Boston and the Center for a New American Security in Washington suggest India maintains an edge in high-altitude mountainous environments, such as the one where the 2020 face-off is taking place."
In any full-fledged war, (though it should be avoided unless thrust on you ) local populations matter. Let us bear in mind that the entire border with China is with Tibet, an annexed territory and in any warfare China has to contend with a Tibetan population, which is inimical to it and is seeking to free itself from China and will back India. Indian troops are one of the best-trained and motivated in the world and have over 200 years of war experience from Mesopotamia, Afghan wars, the first and second World Wars (two million Indian soldiers took part) and have fought fierce battles and won high praise.
All these should put China on the back foot regardless of its posturing. And on a previous occasion in 1967 when the Chinese crossed the borders at Nathu La and Cho La in Sikkim they were punished with heavy retaliation by Indian army, which was led by Gen. Sagat Singh. The Chinese withdrew after losing 340 soldiers. But I wish to emphasise that even if we did not have these advantages, the way to deal with a bully is not the way India has chosen. Appeasement of a bully only emboldens him.
A wake-up call
The moot point is, the ‘Operations Manuals and Guidelines’ for military commanders on the field, at all levels of command are very clearly defined and laid out and they are given sufficient leeway and are expected to use their discretion in repulsing the enemy incursions by choosing appropriate timely tactical responses. They are also required to keep their higher command in the loop.
The problem arises when there is ambiguity in enunciating a clear strategy at the political level and when there’s prevarication and pussyfooting by political leadership, taking away the discretion of army commanders on the field to act decisively when enemy encroaches on your territory. The army commanders cannot suo moto invade a neighbouring country but they are not expected to seek permission from higher authorities to repel enemy incursion into Indian territory. That will be abdicating their core responsibility.
When the enemy crosses the border deliberately or tries to entrench itself , there has to be instant violent retaliation. As the legendary General George Patton said, in such matters, "A good plan violently executed right now is far better than a perfect plan next week."
This hard punch in the face from China is a good wake-up call to the country. Three-and-a-half decades have been wasted by political parties losing themselves in the morass of venal politics of minority appeasement, corruption, horse-trading, communal majoritarian politics, dynastic politics and blind hero worship and completely skewed priorities with poor governance, while China has diligently focussed on becoming an economic and military superpower and has steadfastly built a formidable military support infrastructure all along our border.
Our soldiers are intrepid and fierce warriors but has the government measured up to them by providing the adequate wherewithal to fight an enemy on two fronts - Pakistan and China? It’s time now to focus all our energy on building a robust economy, which is a pre-requisite to a robust military.
GR Gopinath is the founder of Air Deccan. He served on the Chinese front in Cho La and Indo-Bangla War 1971.
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